Or does the DOJ and FBI take care of its own, even its disgraced, former, fired, out-to-protect-their-own-reputation, and likely mendacious own? It's hard to answer that question accurately right now for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being it is very hard to tell when McCabe is actually telling the truth.

Jussie Smollett's claim of a racist attack by supposed MAGA-attire-wearing or slogan-shouting nut jobs is now shredded. And while the media has mostly distanced itself from its own reporting as if this was a Hollywood thing to be apologized for by those stars and personalities who believed Jussie story, and has been in turn ridiculed by some in conservative media for its about face, we now have another hoax in the making, and the problem of what-to-do-with-this?

Twenty years ago, there was TV show called The West Wing. You
may have seen it, if only hi-lights of some episode on YouTube.
In one show Martin Sheen, playing President Josiah Bartlet,
angrily snaps, "I'm the President, I can nationalize the
trucking industry!"

When FDR and Congress put together the New Deal they were not
dealing with untested and unproven technologies. Roads, dams,
hydroelectricity, cars, trains, sewers and other infrastructure
projects had been built for decades and had used proven technology
that did what it was supposed to. It was more a case of a
super-charged Keynesian orgy of government spending and government
planning but using sound engineering.

They're not even saying what they agreed on. Come on. Senator
Shelby, as well, was the only one to actually come out and
do much talking at all about the apparent "deal-in-principle"
that they had reached. We don't know at this point what the
final figure for funding of border barriers is either.

A tale of Two Trumps as John Bennett in Roll Call suggests?
That is, unifying on some of the issues that might provide
a way for Democrats to work with Republicans on things
like maternity leave, drug prices, and infrastructure?
And divisive because he took a hard line on immigration
and abortion?

A home run as National Review's Jim Geraghty suggests? Although
Geraghty cheekily points out 3 areas where he felt that
the SOTU Address struck out - The Kim Jong Un summit, the
negotiations with the Taliban, and the Economic Miracle
that only the president can claim credit for - which sort
of means Geraghty is saying Trump swung really nice but
a shame about the 3 misses.

An eerie echo of Nixon's 1974 State of the Union Address
where he called for an end to the Watergate investigations,
as James Hohmann suggests in his Daily 202 newsletter?

President Trump should not be worrying about reactions to his State of the Union speech. No, he should be terrified of the dark conspiracies being hatched at the Niskanen Center by GOP Trump haters, according to an article by David Drucker at the Washington Examiner. It's a little hard to tell if Drucker is being somewhat ironic or merely dutifully reporting what these folks who want to primary or somehow stop Trump from running for a second term think. Consider that their ringleader seems to be GOP veteran consultant Mike Murphy.

It took 27 years for the tactics used against Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991 to be dusted off and used again against Nominee Brett Kavanaugh last fall. It took a day or two between the sudden revelation of Virginia Governor Northam's med school yearbook and the scandal it produced with the accompanying calls for Northam to resign, and a Kavanaugh-ish story about his Lt. Governor, Justin Fairfax, to emerge.

In just over 2 weeks we will see if Congress - under the aegis of a funded and therefore temporarily reopened government - was able to put together a deal on border security that President Trump would be willing to sign. This past weekend, Trump put the odds at 50-50.

If who you are is the lens through which everything you do
is judged and criticized, then Kamala Harris shouldn't have
to worry about her record as a prosecutor and AG in California.
Because what matters is who she is. Myra Adams, a media/writer/creative-type
who helped advise the 2008 McCain campaign and worked on
the 2004 Bush campaign, has a piece up at Real Clear Politics
that is basically an update of a 9-month old article she
wrote last spring on why Kamala Harris would run for president.

It seems that one of the arguments being put forward after the debacle concerning the confrontation on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is that we haven't learned how to properly manage Social Media. This from conservatives as much as liberals and progressives.

We've all seen the viral video of the apparent stand-off in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington between a teenage student at a Kentucky Catholic school (Covington Catholic High School) and a native veteran beating a drum in a strange sort of confrontation.

William Barr's memo on the faulty logic behind the obstruction of justice charges that Trump opponents would love to see brought against the President may indeed have helped get him the job of Attorney General, should he be confirmed. Which is looking likely given his polished and experienced performance at the hearings.

The State of the Union Address by the president is about the relationship between Congress (both Houses) and the Executive. And the Judiciary - in the form of Supreme Court Justices - is present as well.

In April of 1952, President Trump was nearing his 6th birthday and the Korean "police" action - it was never a formally declared war on America's part - was raging, having started in June of 1950 with North Korea's invasion of South Korea. President Truman had been anxious to have America step into the breach and defend the embattled South. Truman was perhaps stung by Senator McCarthy's denouncing that communist sympathizers worked for his administration. He had reportedly seen the Korean War as an opportunity to push his weight around and get things done and prove his credentials as a true fighter against communism.